The Little Lion
by Sapphires And Gold
Summary: One-shot. Parallel to 8x6. Brienne finds a treasure.


When the Keep was finally cleared for use by the builders, Brienne had set about doing her own inspections while she waited for things to settle into normalcy. The new Kingsguard uniforms hadn't even been finished yet and a meeting of the small council hadn't yet been deemed necessary. Pod was busy training a class of squires in the stables daily as part of his new routine, and Brienne was uncomfortable being idle.

It was her duty as the new leader of the White Cloaks to protect King Bran, and she was going to start by ensuring that no surprises had been left behind by the previous occupants. The builders had cleared most of the ruin before patching it up, but there was a clutch of rooms in one of the wings and a tower that had remained stable and had not required such attention.

Numbering among the unaffected spaces were the former Grand Maester's laboratory, some rooms that - based on the surprising number of doors between each of them - she suspected had been maintained by the former Master of Whispers, the White Sword tower where the Kingsguard resided among records and relics of the past, and a set rooms just off the tower stairs whose purpose was unknown. King Bran had sought an interest in all the goings on of the Keep, and so Brienne set to the task of clearing the floors of debris and ensuring that there would be enough room around the heavy tables and singular furniture which seemed to have been built within walls of the Keep itself. She was determined that, barring any difficulties with the width of the doorways themselves (and of course disregarding the need for him to be borne by her knights from one level of each tower to the next), King Bran should meet no obstacle to exploring his new home.

"If the Mountain could clear the doors," she thought, "that chair of his should be no problem."

The rooms formerly occupied by the Spider were a conundrum. One seemed to lead to the next and the next until you somehow found yourself back in the first room, or at the top of a staircase to nowhere. She wasn't certain that the King would have need of these spaces, but she thought it best to at least try to navigate the layout as a matter of safety. Perhaps these rooms could be used as protection should an assassin come for the King. Or conversely an assassin would have a hiding space here. She considered the second option and examined the excessive tables and crates she found in each corner, kicking each one in turn to ensure that they were either hollow or at least sufficiently lacking assassins. Satisfied, she left and closed the heavy door behind her. She would return once they were settled in with other knights in tow to dispel the mystery of the maze.

She had the laboratory emptied carefully save for the dusty books and empty vessels. If the new Maester wanted to utilize that space for experiments, better he bring in his own materials. Who knew what sordid things lay in the murky jars left behind by Qyburn.

The man had been a decent enough traveling companion – quiet but tolerant of them, and attentive to their wounds. Jaime's arm would have festered without his care, and the gashes on Brienne's neck – the scars of which had never completely flattened out, leaving watery ripples across her collarbone – had required repeated cleaning daily for some weeks. Qyburn would have preferred to sear the wounds, but Jaime had been down that road with him and, for her sake, suggested they try another method, one that had still been a somewhat painful process. The ex-maester had been as gentle as he could given their circumstances as they traveled south to the capital, but on more than one occasion had she cursed violently as he washed it, causing Jaime to chuckle at her language from across the fire. She was thankful to the man for having helped them but given his affinity for Cersei and what he had done with the Mountain, Brienne thought it best to purge anything suspect.

She then made her way down the hall to what she had been, in her mind, referring to as the nursery – a set of two wide attached rooms, each with a tall window dominating the southernmost wall and letting in the light, equipped with heavy drapes to shut it out, a small child's size bed in each with none of the decoration that one might see in one of the tower bedrooms – simple, inornate, but quite comfortable and almost cheery once the air was let in.

Though the rooms were just off the stairs, the sounds of the Keep seem to be dampened here. The air was still and quiet with only the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks beneath the castle to be heard. It was serene here and she'd taken to visiting it whenever she'd needed to clear her head. The beds were far too small for her, but there was a wide cushioned window seat in each room which afforded her a comfortable space to breathe and ponder. While she was grateful to be without her armor for a time, she felt anxious without it. Sitting there by the window seemed to help.

She'd been tidying up the rooms little by little between her other tasks – each time she came in to breathe she would shift some furniture or examine the worthiness of the items left behind – a looking glass, a washbasin, even a few knickknacks like combs and toys that had been cast away long ago. On this occasion she visited the larger of the two rooms – a beautifully wide space where the sounds of the water echoed in the almost rounded corners, and the walls were flecked in gold and rose. She sat at the window bench and looked about the room for an occupation.

She'd already done almost all she could in these rooms over the course of the preceding week. She was unsure what they might be used for next, but whomever used them would, she was sure, be guaranteed the best light and air in the whole castle. Her eyes danced across the small bed which was made up as if waiting for its charge. A girl, she had guessed, based on the small pile of dolls she saw still stacked on a corner table. "Perhaps," she thought, "we can have these sent to Flea Bottom as a comfort when the Hand of the King took his next trip out to see to the people's needs."

She looked about and spotted a basket behind some linens on a high shelf. She took the basket down and set it on the bed, and gingerly lifted each doll from the stack in the corner, examining it as she lay them in the basket. They were well-crafted and not too fragile. Yes, some small child out there could enjoy these rather than letting them crumble to dust here in the tower. She stroked the silky hair of the last doll – one with bright yellow curls and dark green eyes – and then she stopped. Out of the corner of her eye she'd spotted an item that had been on the table, buried beneath the other toys.

She set the doll in the basket and turned back to the table. On it sat another toy – a beautifully carved wooden lion. She reached for it and found it to be lighter than it appeared. The craftsman must have used driftwood or something equally light to sculpt it. She looked back at the blonde doll in the basket, and then back a the lion in her hands, and her breath caught in her throat.

"Myrcella."

She spoke the name aloud and her voice swirled around the room with the sound of the sea. Myrcella Baratheon, Cersei's only daughter. Jaime's daughter. She'd been poisoned by Oberyn Martell's lover when Jaime tried to bring her home. She'd died in his arms shortly after confessing that she knew he was her father and that she was glad because she knew he was a good man... Brienne had never met the girl - she'd been shipped off to Dorne before Brienne ever imagined herself going to King's Landing - but there was no question in her mind - these had been the rooms of the Lannister children. All dead now. Their parents dead too. She felt ill.

She rushed to the window and the ocean breeze immediately helped settle her. She drank it in deeply, her eyes closed to the light. When she opened them again the sun had just dipped beneath the horizon on the other side of the capital, dying the sky scarlet. She realized her shoulders had been up at her ears, her anxiety getting the better of her. She lowered her shoulders and realized she was still clutching carved lion to her chest. Looking at it in the fading pink light she could see that it had once been intricate in its design, but years of bedtime embraces by small hands had left it smooth, nearly polished. She examined it carefully for a maker's mark but there was none to be seen.

She felt tears creeping in around the edges of her eyes and sniffed, trying to pull them back in. She looked back toward the basket and could still see the green glass eyes of the doll almost glowing; it had to have been created in Myrcella's likeness. A nameday gift, perhaps. Judging by the state of things she must have left all of her girlhood toys behind when she joined her to-be-betrothed in Dorne all those years ago.

Brienne wondered briefly whether Cersei had come and petted the dolls too when Myrcella died, but then she thought the better of it. Cersei had loved her children, it was her one and only redeeming quality in Brienne's mind. But Cersei was by all accounts not a sentimental being. No, these things had likely been just as Myrcella had left them. Tommen would have vacated the adjoining apartment not so long after Myrcella's departure, rising to the throne himself when Joffrey had been killed.

"So much sadness and death in one family in so brief a time," she thought. "And almost no one left to grieve."

She thought of Tyrion who always hid his sadness behind his wit. These days he seemed to be trying to open up to her but whether that was for his benefit or for hers she had yet to discern. Her thoughts then turned to Bronn - a sellsword, made knight, now lord - he had always rubbed her the wrong way but she knew that he had been dedicated to Tyrion for probably as long as she had known Jaime. He was the one who had trained Jaime to fight with his left hand after losing his sword hand because of her. He was also, Jaime had told her late one night, the man who had saved him when he had decided to idiotically charge Daenerys and her dragon head-on. He might not have many scruples, but between him, Tyrion and herself, there didn't seem to be anyone else for her to share her memories with these days.

She stroked the back of the little wooden lion with her palm, so smooth and worn it might look like stone in the right light. If there was no one else left who'd loved the Lannisters, there'd be no point in giving it away. The dolls and other toys she'd found scattered in the next room could go to good use but, she decided, it would not be right to part with this.

Holding the lion under her arm she picked up the basket of dolls and moved to the next room. Gathering everything up, she stepped into the hall where the torches were just being lit and made her way toward the kitchens where she would find a servant to take the basket out to the wagon in the courtyard. Free of the basket and alone again on the stairs she considered her next steps, finally deciding to head back the way she had come. She'd been avoiding this for weeks but her visit was overdue.

She entered the White Sword tower and stepped into the common room - a room she had recalled so many times in her dreams. There Jaime had shown her the White Book with the names and deeds of all the Lord Commanders, he'd given her Oathkeeper and armor he'd had built for her, just before sending her away. The walls were covered with swords and armor of fallen knights, shining in the torchlight of the small chamber. Setting the lion down on the table, she stroked the spine of the book that contained so much history, so little of which interested her.

Careful to not make too much noise as the enormous tome opened, she moved to the middle pages, searching...finally landing on the only name that held meaning. She stared at the page in disbelief - she'd seen it before, Jaime had made her read it aloud... but something was different now. He'd told her he would fill in his pages eventually, that he had time, but he'd only had a chance to add a short addendum. Reading down the page she realized he must have done it right after he sent her away. His entry now continued: "Defeated in the Whispering Wood by the Young Wolf Robb Stark during the War of the Five Kings. Held captive at Riverrun and ransomed for a promise unfulfilled. Captured again by Roose Bolton's bannermen, maimed at the word of their captain and losing his sword hand to the blade of Locke. Returned safely to King's Landing by Brienne, the Maid of Tarth."

Locke's name suddenly bloomed and Brienne realized she was crying onto the book. She straightened her body and leaned back against the table that ran along the wall behind her, gripping the edge as if the floor might disappear beneath her feet at any moment.

He had put her in the book. Her name was already in the book that she now had the responsibility of filling. He had committed her name beside his years ago, and she had never known. She took a deep breath and tried to slow the sobs that were now wracking her body. She wiped her eyes with the linen of her sleeves, then flattened her palms against the cool stone of the table, willing herself to relax.

She leaned over the book once more and lovingly touched the page where he had written her name. She knew she would need to fill in the rest - his bloodless capture of Riverrun, his campaign at Highgarden, his return to the North to fight for living by her side...and yes, she would need to include his fatal flight south. But not tonight. The book had a thousand pages but she could destroy half of them with the tears she knew would flow the moment she let herself think on his death again. Better to do it in the light of day. She closed the book.

She looked at the wooden lion sitting on the table and touched it with her fingertips. In the firelight it almost looked alive, like she should be able to feel it breathing. She looked up around her at the walls, at all the displayed swords and armor and shields as it occurred to her that there would be nothing of Jaime's to show.

As a parting gesture, the Unsullied had returned Widow's Wail to Bran who gave it to Tyrion so that Jaime might be buried with it - the twin to the sword he had given to her in that very room. She looked back at the lion and picked it up, then looked around the small chamber, finally lighting on the table behind her where Jaime had once kept the sword that would become hers.

She set the lion down on the table and regarded it from the center of the room. With the window above it she imagined that in daylight it would look aflame - golden. Her sad smile grew wider as she pictured Jaime standing there in the lion's place, beaming with pride like he had when he had knighted her at Winterfell. She took a deep breath and he was gone, but her smile remained. So long as she was Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, there the little Lannister lion would remain - looking over her shoulder whenever she sat to fill the pages of their book.


End file.
